Urban lab
The growing desperation with which Athenians watch their surrounding mountains for any sign of smoke is an indication of how degraded life in the capital has become. A year ago, most of the pine and fir forest on Mount Parnitha was destroyed by a fire that started on the other side of the mountain and, through incompetence and mixed signals on the part of the authorities, was allowed to rage out of control. This year, on June 26, a fire broke out in the lush pine forest on the northeastern slopes of Mount Hymettus, among the last bits of a major reforestry project carried out largely by volunteers after World War II, during which the mountain was denuded by Athenians searching for firewood. We all fear that it is just a matter of time before the last Athenian forest is destroyed and the city is scorched by the bare white rock of the mountains surrounding the city. At some point, life in Athens will be unbearable. If you climb any of the mountains ringing Athens or stand atop the hills that rise like islands out of a sea of cement, you can begin to comprehend the magnitude of the crime the Greeks have committed against their capital and against themselves. Whether you are on mounts Hymettus, Pendeli, Parnitha or Aegaleo, on the Acropolis or Lycabettus or Philopappos hills, you see a coastal basin surrounded by mountains on three sides and the Saronic Gulf on the fourth. The plain, choked by buildings as if they had sprung out of the earth like malignant mushrooms, used to be prime farmland, filled with olive groves, vineyards and forests. It was watered by rivers, mainly the Kifissos and Iridanos. The mountains, the land, the rivers were of such beauty, that from antiquity until a few decades ago poets would sing their praise and travelers could understand how the ancestors of the ragged villagers of Attica could have scaled – indeed, discovered – the greatest heights of beauty in all the arts. Now, not only has Athens lost much of its beauty, but it has become a dangerous place to live, because of the heat and air pollution. We have burned down the mountains repeatedly, we have covered the rivers with cement and turned them into roads and sewers. We have cut down the forests, vineyards and olive groves and smothered them with nondescript apartment blocks, factories and narrow streets which are themselves choked by more cars than they can handle. Thankfully, last year’s fires prompted a strong public reaction. Preservation and reforestation are on the agenda, with volunteers and non-government organizataions taking a leading role, embarrassing the state into greater activity on the issue. But if we want our city to become a pleasant place to live in, we will have to take drastic action, beyond preserving the little that has survived so far. The mountains must be reforested, as must the site of the old airport at Hellenikon. A large part of the central Attica basin must be expropriated to build a park that will relieve the most congested parts of the city and function as a green lung and conduit for air currents. Cars must be forced off the streets and sidewalks and into newly built parking garages, so that pedestrians and cyclists and public transport can take their rightful place. All this may sound like wild dreams, but if we are to help the city survive into the century that has just begun, we will have to take decisive steps to undo much of the damage caused in the last 50 years.
